


wearing a blindfold, my shoelace untied

by ahermioneh



Series: closing the cracks [2]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 4 + 1 things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Be Nice to Clint Barton, Childhood Friends, Deaf Clint Barton, Gen, Grief/Mourning, POV Outsider, POV Third Person, Percy's not there, SO, Set Between + During Chapters 12 and 18 of the first fic in this series, Spies & Secret Agents, but half the fic revolves around him, but he's not really dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:47:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25163386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ahermioneh/pseuds/ahermioneh
Summary: or 4 Times Steve Rogers Met Someone For The First Time (+ 1 Time He Didn't)Steve was still having a lot of trouble acclimatising to the future, but it gets better as he meets some people along the way. It's just difficult to get comfortable in his new job when everyone seems to be looking for a ghost instead of him.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton & Percy Jackson, Clint Barton & Percy Jackson & Natasha Romanov (Marvel), Clint Barton & Steve Rogers
Series: closing the cracks [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1821790
Comments: 39
Kudos: 435





	wearing a blindfold, my shoelace untied

**Author's Note:**

> this is the second work in our series 'closing the cracks' (which actually has a name now!). this is to celebrate glass figures reaching 1000 kudos here on AO3, so thank you everyone for reading both that and this!
> 
> the title is from 'half-asleep' from Amelie (UK).
> 
> (warning: brief mention of suicidal thoughts/attempt; it's literally two words and it's in the fifth part. to skip it, jump from "terminal velocity isn't the most pleasant of experiences." to "Clint tilted his gaze")

**_wearing a blindfold, my shoelace untied_ **

  
  


**1 - Phil Coulson**

Steve Rogers met Phil Coulson for the first time after not all that much time in the 21st Century. On first impression, he seemed to be a relatively unassuming man; bland demeanour, the sort of face that would be very easy to overlook in a crowd. Not much by way of a personality, either.

It was a brief and all together un-inspiring first meeting with the two of them meeting for only a couple of minutes whilst Coulson was debriefed on the situation. 

Steve observed him sharply, eyes roaming up and down the agent’s body, cataloguing every single weapon he could see. One gun, two knives, and probably countless gadgets that a guy from the Forties couldn’t anticipate. After all, Steve had jumped seventy years into the future, and suddenly people had all of the information in the world available at the touch of a button. It didn’t seem like too big a leap to assume that Coulson’s watch was probably more deadly than the gun that was comfortably nestled at his side.

That alone confirmed for Steve that first impressions were deceiving, somehow even more so than in the Forties. Even after only a few minutes with Coulson, it was apparent that he was a lot more than a boring paper pusher. 

So, Steve's revised first impression? A loyal, steadfast character, who played by the rules, and certainly wasn't afraid of any of the deadly people that surrounded anybody who worked at any level in the spy organisation known as SHIELD. 

Even that impression didn't turn out to be entirely correct. 

Steve's second encounter with Agent Coulson was three or four days after their first interaction. He'd been staying in the New York HQ for a few days, just trying to get a little up to speed before the organisation was comfortable 'releasing him into the wild' (Fury's words). His day had been long, crammed with information that was uncomfortably disjointed (and wildly at odds with what he thought he knew about the world), and altogether boring. He was also beginning to grow rather tired of being gawked at like some sort of circus attraction every second of the day, but that was something unlikely to change anytime soon (or so he had been told).

On this occasion, Coulson seemed to be actively seeking Steve out, giving him a polite half-wave and gently ushering him into a quiet conference room, closing the door behind him.

"Captain Rogers," he greeted, voice tinged with a touch of warmth, but maintaining the cool professional edge that the whispers Steve had picked up from the other agents (they seemed to forget how good his hearing was, now) said that he was renowned for. "Now, I don't want to keep you here long. I'm sure that you've had a challenging day, and you probably want to get away from the rest of us for a while, so I'll keep this brief."

Steve decided, politely, not to say anything, even if he desperately wanted to ask him if it could wait, because he was tired and wanted nothing more than to head back to his quarters, fall asleep, and pretend that none of this future business had ever happened. It was getting to the point where he could no longer convince himself that this was some long and complex dream.

Coulson smiled at Steve, hands spread out on the table in a subtle display of trust. "Well, Captain, first of all, I just want to tell you that you have always been the most incredible role model for me. I grew up carrying a replica Captain America shield on one hand and a Bucky Bear in the other.”

Steve blinked at Coulson, not quite sure how to respond to the fact that his boss (supervisor? colleague? Steve didn’t know) had idolised him to the point of owning merchandise that was designed to mirror his own stupid costume. Then again, it felt weird that anyone had admired him enough to consider manufacturing said merchandise, let alone sell it to children. 

“Now, this might sound weird and you might not be aware of all of this yet, but there was a limited run of trading cards created to commemorate the amazing things that you did for the American people and to immortalise the image that Captain America created. Now, over the years, I've managed to get my hands on a complete set, all in mint condition." He reached slowly into his jacket pocket, pulling out a small, padded envelope, which he placed reverently on the table between them. "Sorry, I know this must all be a little strange, but I was wondering if you would do me the honour of signing them? It's not often that your heroes get resurrected." 

Wow. Okay. That was quite a lot to take in, to be perfectly honest. Steve reached forward to pick up one of the cards, which showed him in that (incredibly tacky) costume that he’d been forced to wear during those USO shows, rendered in the gaudy ('vintage', he'd been told) style of the wartime propaganda posters. He gulped as he realised that history had almost entirely erased the fact that he was mostly a glorified performer rather than an actual soldier for the majority of the war. 

He placed the card down face first, trying to ignore the feelings of guilt and fraudulence that were bubbling up inside of him. He sighed deeply before looking back at Coulson, whose eyes were glittering with joy. It was strangely touching. After all, Steve wasn't too old to have heard the phrase 'never meet your heroes', but what this innocent request was now suggesting to him (and maybe he was taking this out of proportion somewhat) was that the in-person reality of Steve Rogers, the sickly kid from Brooklyn with a bad attitude, seemed to be enough, even next to the towering monolith of the perfect children's idol. 

So, after a short moment, he found the words. "I'd be honoured to, Agent Coulson."

Coulson looked absolutely delighted (for a guy who didn't have much emotional range, granted), and very eagerly produced a pen out of nowhere. 

Steve carefully picked up a card and placed it in front of him, the artist in him desperately wanting to find a small corner in which to sign, but the greater part of him knew to just scribble over the image itself, even if it was a 'vintage set in mint condition'. 

And so he signed all of the cards one by one, while Coulson watched with a reverent joy.

"Thank you, Captain," he said, eventually gathering the cards back up and neatly placing them back into their envelope. "This means a lot to me."

Steve smiled. "Steve, please. Between you and me, it's been a while since I was in the army." He suppressed the urge to admit that he really didn't deserve the Captaincy that had been placed upon him performatively, rather than having earned it through years of service like the rest of the soldiers he had served with. Like Coulson.

"In which case, Steve, you'd better call me Phil. Thank you for your time; I'll let you get back to what you were doing." 

He walked over to open the door for Steve, but paused halfway through the movement, sighing deeply and resignedly rubbing a hand over his face. Coulson ( _Phil_ ) glanced up at the ceiling, rolling his eyes. Steve didn’t take Coulson for much of an eye-roller, but considering everything else, it didn’t feel completely out of character.

"Barton?" he called, voice edged with steel. 

There was a distant snigger, and the distinct sound of somebody wriggling through a narrow space. 

Coulson pushed the door closed. "I guess I'd better introduce you."

**2 - Clint Barton**

There was a metallic shriek as somebody kicked at the vent cover in the middle of the ceiling, which was followed by a resounding crash, as aforementioned vent cover fell out of the ceiling panel and onto the conference room table. A man followed the vent cover out of the ceiling, landing lightly on the table and brushing copious quantities of dust from his blondish hair. Steve's first impression was that he was altogether too tall to be comfortably crawling around in the ceiling (not to mention a little too old to find amusement in spying on people via the air ducts). The latest intruder gave a disarming (and slightly frightening) smile, and proffered a hand. "Clint Barton," he said cheerfully, pointedly ignoring the glare that Phil was levelling in his direction. 

Steve shook his hand, now even more confused. Upon closer inspection, Barton appeared to still be a teenager, so Steve wasn’t exactly sure how he had the security clearance to a) be allowed to roam around in the vents of SHIELD HQ without too much reprimand from a senior agent, and b) crash a meeting that was probably classified (Steve wasn’t sure if the meeting actually had handled international secrets, but Coulson having emotions and a childhood idol kind of felt like it was very much on a need-to-know basis.)

Phil sighed. "Barton is one of my best field agents. You have probably been briefed on most of the do's and don'ts around the base. Some of those points appear to be a little absurd, I assume?"

Steve nodded. "No removal of anybody's clothing or accessories with use of high-precision projectiles designed for mission use?" 

Phil nodded. "Yes, that's one of them. Those rules are generally there because this one-" he gestured at Barton -"has no idea of how a normal human being should behave. I don't know why I keep him on, honestly. He's much more trouble than he's worth." 

Barton gave an exaggerated hurt impression. "You wound me, sir. Besides, without me, who would put muddy boot prints on Fury's desk immediately prior to an important meeting?" 

"Nobody, if they had any sense of self-preservation," Phil countered evenly. 

Barton shrugged. "There is no need to point out my flaws in this conversation. I could go to my psychological evaluation if I want to ignore advice from people who pretend to be sensible." He nodded at Steve, clearly trying to change the subject. “It actually is, like, a big deal to meet you. Uhh, one of my best friends was a pretty big Captain America fan when he was a kid. He had a lot of issues at home, and, you know, your whole standing up to bullies schtick was a big motivator for him when he was younger.” Clint (it didn’t feel right to refer to him by his surname when he’d just bared that much information to Steve) frowned. “Probably when he was older as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was one of the reasons why he joined SHIELD.”

Coulson's demeanour shifted quite noticeably to a much more guarded expression at that, but Steve decided not to bring it up out of courtesy. 

But, he had to ask, and there was no tactful way of doing it (even if the whole atmosphere in the room was telling him that it was a bad idea). "What's his name? I could pay a visit, now I'm not dead and all that." 

Clint winced slightly. "His name was Percy, but he was killed in the line of duty about six months back, so that might be slightly difficult to do." 

_Shit_.

Well done, Steve. Way to go putting your great big feet in it. "I'm sorry to hear that."

Clint shrugged. "Well, it happens to the best of us. It's not like us 'specialised covert operatives' have a particularly long lifespan, is it?"

He jumped off the table with the effortless grace of somebody who's done rather a lot of jumping off things in his time. If Steve hadn't just been in a seminar discussing how men get sensitive when you ask them personal questions (as if he didn't know that. He was from the 1940s, not Mars), he might have asked if Clint had a background as a dancer.

Clint shrugged towards the door. “I’m gonna go get some dinner. It was nice meeting you, Captain Rogers. See ya, boss.” He gave Coulson a mocking salute.

“Steve, please.” Steve looked down at this kid in front of him, and realised that they had a surprising amount in common. They’d both lost their best friends in the past six months (or rather seventy years for Steve), and they both appeared to have problems with authority. Steve could respect the guy.

Clint’s lips curved into a smile. “See you later, Steve.”

**3 - Natasha Romanov**

Steve met Natasha Romanov a few days after her partner in crime fell out of the ceiling during his conversation with Phil Coulson. 

They were in a briefing room. Apparently they needed 'an extra pair of boots on the ground' for some mission somewhere (the details were a little thin), and they wanted to test Steve's field readiness by putting him into a situation with the best pair of agents in the entirety of SHIELD.

Needless to say, Steve was slightly surprised to see Clint Barton in the briefing room when he entered (with his boots on the table, which was somewhat less surprising). And with him, a woman.

If Steve was a shallower man, he might have been taken in by her beauty and failed to notice the distinctly predatory air that surrounded her. However, one doesn't need to spend much time around Margaret Carter to know that there is often more to a woman than a pretty face, so he had the presence of mind to be somewhat afraid of the other operative.

She gave a small, cool smile as he walked in (on time, so he wasn't sure why they were waiting like he was a schoolboy that needed scolding). "Natasha Romanov." She offered him a hand to shake.

"Steve Rogers." 

She nodded, lips turning up slightly at the edges. On anyone else her expression probably would have looked like a smile, but it felt more like she was waiting to eat Steve. "Yes, I guessed that much."

Phil coughed quietly from his seat in the corner. "Agent Romanov, there is no need to try and scare him off. I've put him on this mission, and, as you know, my word is final." 

"We don't need a third agent," she replied coldly, taking a seat in a somewhat disgruntled fashion.

Phil sighed, hand rubbing across his forehead. "I'm not criticising your ability to work well as a pair, but this mission needs a three-pronged approach. It doesn't have to be a permanent posting. Now, if we can turn our attention to the matter at hand?" 

It wasn't much by way of a first impression, but Steve quite quickly discovered that Agent Romanov was a character who liked to play her cards close to her chest (quite unlike Barton, who seemed to overshare every opportunity that he had, all without clarifying a single detail from his past in the process). 

And he couldn't deny that the pair of them were an excellent team. After two or three short missions, he even felt comfortable to join in a little with their playful banter as they sniped at each other from other sides of the jet, both bearing lazy grins and bruised, muddy faces. 

But Steve wasn't stupid, no matter what people liked to think. However talented the pair were, there was a piece of the jigsaw missing. It wasn't immediately obvious, and it didn't compromise their performance in the field, but it appeared at the smallest of moments: the odd glance behind at nothing, the occasional pause when banter dried up, as if waiting for a response, the fact that they always seemed to have a little bit of kit to spare, whether an extra water bottle or a handgun without a holster. 

He’d caught Natasha looking at him with a bit too much familiarity in her eyes before she realised that it was him, not the third person whose place he’d filled. Clint’s lips had slipped multiple times, beginning to form a name before cutting off. Even Coulson occasionally seemed taken aback to find Steve standing at Clint’s left. 

These were broken people, however well they patched the cracks.

Maybe this century could have a place for Steve in it, after all. He could never fill the gap that this mysterious character had left (and the more he thought about it, the more he realised that it must be this 'Percy' that Clint had mentioned when they first met), just as no friendship would ever be able to fill the empty space torn into him as Bucky fell from that god awful train, but maybe, just maybe, it could be a start. 

He worked with the pair of them a lot, but he never even considered asking Coulson to make the move a permanent one. There were some things that were better left untouched; some wounds that no amount of time would ever truly heal.

**4 - Jason Grace**

Jason Grace was one hell of a lot more complicated than most people gave him credit, that much was for sure. Steve wasn't sure that even Coulson could see it. At first glance, Grace was the perfect soldier, his back ramrod straight, boots polished, and pale blue eyes focused far ahead of him, seeing something that wasn’t entirely there. He held himself with the gait of a battle-hardened soldier, constantly ready for action, but still grieving something he’d lost. Steve couldn’t put his finger on it, but Grace’s clear veterancy felt different to that of the other SHIELD agents around them.

The first time Steve met him, back in 2018, the facade had slipped somewhat. There was a slight unevenness to his gait, the tiniest pinch and crinkle in his impeccable posture. 

"You alright, son?" Steve asked in an undertone, standing in a quietish corner of the main meeting hall (Fury hadn't even arrived yet, so it was up to the agents to make idle small talk while they waited).

"Of course, sir," Grace replied, just a tiny bit too quickly.

Steve nodded, not wanting to pry, but also really wanted to know what was up. "I won't rat on you if it's embarrassing, I promise," he continued, letting the ghost of a long-dead smile pull at the corner of his mouth.

Jason sighed very softly. "Just took a bit of a tumble from the parkour course, is all. Trying to keep up with Barton's times; never a good idea."

He was lying about where he got his injuries, but that didn't matter too much. There was something in the young man's eyes that was really bothering Steve, though. It was a look that he knew rather too well, unfortunately: the pain of a commander who had lost good men (or women. This was the twenty-first century, after all).

“Trying to distract yourself from a tough mission?”

Jason’s eyebrows jumped slightly. “No.” He shook his head as if trying to convince both Steve and himself. “Quite the opposite, actually; I just got back from leave. Need to make a good impression, you get me? Fury doesn't like agents that actually have lives outside of the barracks.” 

Steve chuckled softly. "Well, I can't say I'd know much about what goes on outside of these walls myself, so you're the lucky one in this situation."

Jason sighed. "Well, I've got a big extended family, and I'm sure you know how _that_ can be. Don't get me wrong, I love them, but sometimes it's a relief to get back to work and away from it all again. I just hope I don't get assigned to bodyguard duty again. Most boring op of my _life_." But despite his words, Steve got the impression that the poor lad was actually quite looking forward to a bit of 'boring'. 

"Did you do anything fun while you were on leave?" he asked, trying to tease a little bit more out of him.

Jason shrugged. "We had a couple of good days out. Hiked up Mount Tamalpais, just outside San Francisco, which was nice." His voice hitched imperceptibly on 'nice', which was enough to tell Steve that he was lying about that part as well. 

Nonetheless, after more conversations with the guy, he seemed to be one of the most trustworthy of the whole lot on the base (which, admittedly, wasn't particularly difficult, since most of these people lied and murdered for a living). The very fact that Steve had been able to tell when he was lying was enough to tell him that it wasn't something that Jason did very often. By and large, he was incredibly reliable, both on and off the field, and Steve really admired that (call him old-fashioned, but integrity was something he looked for in a person).

Maybe Jason didn't have the same contempt for authority that Clint Barton did, but he wasn't nearly as boring or two-dimensional as most of the base seemed to think, and he didn't needle you with concerningly well-made paper aeroplanes from twenty feet away during important briefings, either (or prank Nick Fury and have to hide and have food parcels brought to him via the ventilation ducts for almost three weeks for fear of dismemberment). 

Steve decided that he could probably forgive the odd lie from a man as doggedly loyal as this particular Agent. There weren't many people who he'd wholly trust to watch his six (in fact, he could almost certainly count them on the fingers of one hand), but Jason Grace was right up there on that list for sure.

**+1 - Percy Jackson**

On the whole, Steve didn't really like to pry. As far as he was concerned, people were allowed to have private lives and keep their pasts to themselves (he wasn't sure that he wanted to know quite how blood-soaked the pasts of some of his colleagues were, anyway).

But his new workmates (maybe even friends?) did have a secret that Steve was desperate to find out more about. That secret had a name: Percy.

Not much to go on, admittedly, especially in an organisation the size of SHIELD, but Steve was far more perceptive than people gave him credit, so, despite not actively seeking out information about the mysterious character (he wasn't sure he'd be able to find anything on the enormous computers, anyway, even though he was marginally more technologically literate than the average one-hundred-year-old), he gleaned rather a lot, little disjointed facts, loose ends left behind when a life was torn from a complex web of truths, lies and love.

On principle, Steve wasn't a huge fan of the parkour course. It seemed to him to be much more of a battle for status than any meaningful training for ninety percent of operatives, and it was never going to be much of a competition anyway.

Next to the parkour course, there was a whiteboard with two columns: one displaying the best times in that week, and the other displaying the top ten record times.

Now, obviously the weekly column was constantly shifting and therefore mostly a smudgy mess, and the same was largely true of the bottom half of the records column. However, there was a marked decrease in times between the fastest and slowest five on the records board, and as such the top five names stayed pretty much put. 

It came as little surprise to Steve that, having seen the acrobat in action, the top three times were all accredited to 'Barton'. But the fourth surname on the list was different, and not an agent that he knew: 'Jackson'. If he'd worked closely with Clint, it would have explained the impressive performance on the course, but Steve always found himself chickening out whenever he thought about bringing it up in front of Clint or Nat (especially Nat: she was terrifying). 

After a few months working at SHIELD, Steve found out about the roof access of the base. He didn't go up there much himself: the greyish smudgy sky at night only left him yearning for the star-studded heavens that he remembered, but he did know that it was a favourite haunt of Barton's; the guy had a bit of a thing about being up high.

So the roof was where Steve found him, one lazy afternoon, sitting down right on the edge, legs hanging into empty space. 

Steve closed the roof door loudly enough for Clint to realise that he was there without making him jump (he didn't want him to fall, not that he expected him to).

"Coulson send you?" Clint asked, not turning around, or acknowledging Steve's presence in any other way. "Come to tell me not to jump off?" His voice had a slightly unpleasant edge to it, a tinge of derision, of a coldness that Steve had never really seen in him before. 

Steve hesitated for a second; if he was already frosty, it might not be the best time to bother Barton. "Coulson didn't send me," Steve replied, keeping his voice as level and calm as possible. "And I didn't come to tell you not to jump, although I would advise against it if you're considering it. Trust me when I say that impact at terminal velocity isn't the most pleasant of experiences." 

Clint laughed harshly, and it sounded like nails on a chalkboard. "You really think I come all the way up here to think about jumping off again?" 

Steve flinched at the implications of the word ‘again’. He steeled himself, hoping that he wasn’t about to get shot through the leg with an arrow. "If you don't, then why do you come all the way up here?" 

Clint tilted his gaze up above the New York skyline, towards the distant edge of the horizon. "You know, I don't think about falling when I jump." He kicked his feet idly in the air as if preparing to get up, to stand on nothing at all. Steve wondered if he was close enough to catch him if he did. Probably not. "Sometimes people ask why I'm so good on the parkour course, and that's it. You tell yourself that you're going to fly, and you don't even consider the possibility that you could fall. It doesn't matter, in the end, whether you're on a big top tightrope or at the top of the goddamn Empire State-" his voice hitched softly, as if that building in particular held some sort of extra significance for him. Steve could relate to that, of course. He'd seen the monolith grow from the ground until it clawed its fingers towards the heavens. 

He was brought out of his reverie as Clint ploughed on. "-the feeling's the same, as long as you don't look down. The question isn't about falling, or how long or how far. It's about faith. Flying." 

Steve's throat closed a little to hear words so poetic coming from a man so young. It's no coincidence that most poets died young, after all: they tended to be forged by fire, tested by tragedy. Hearing those words made him realise quite how much Clint Barton had seen in his few short years.

Steve very slowly walked over, as if approaching a wounded animal. He sat down cross-legged about a metre back from the edge, and waited patiently for Clint to make an acidic comment about his choice of seat.

He didn't have to wait long. "What, old man? You scared of heights?" 

"I don't share your belief in my own balance skills, and my best friend fell off of a train and to his death, so I’d rather not chance it, eh.” Two could play the angry grief game, after all, and for Steve, the pain was still fresh, even if the rest of the world had spent seventy years forgetting Bucky Barnes, the personality so bright that it almost hurt to remember.

Clint sighed softly, and the ghost of a smile flickered across his face for the briefest of moments. "You don't pull your punches, do you?" 

"Blame my archaic upbringing, if you like, but we both know it's because I was in the army. You say things as they are, and let me tell you that the services haven't changed one bit during my brief nap." 

"He didn't pull his punches, either." Clint drew a plain, but highly polished knife from a sheath on his belt and began to turn it over and over, idle, yet lethal.

“Your friend? Percy?”

He nodded wordlessly, and kept studying the utilitarian blade. "He gave me this. Always that tiny bit quicker with a knife than me. Said that a neat weapon for ugly close-quarters fights would get me out of scrapes. He was right, of course." He paused briefly, staring intently at the scattered light reflecting from the blade. "Usually was, not that I'd ever have told him that to his stupid face." Quite abruptly, he sat up a little straighter and re-sheathed the knife, eyes instantly more guarded, as if an invisible shutter had come down between the two of them. 

"That doesn't mean that you have to listen all the time. God knows I never listened to the voice of reason, and I'm still here, aren't I?" Steve could picture the scene as if it was yesterday; Bucky picking him up and telling him, 'you gotta be less reckless, or you'll get your scrawny ass killed'. 

The fact that Steve had proved him wrong on that particular front didn't make it any easier. It was unlikely that anything ever would. 

"Tell me about him," Steve offered, carefully watching for Clint's reaction. "Maybe I'll be able to tell you something the books don't remember about my friend." 

Clint nodded, but still didn't seem to be able to bring himself to turn around, leaving Steve watching the back of his head and the coiling tension in his shoulders as he snatched at handfuls of loose gravel on the roof's edge. "He was a swimmer. Everyone knows that, but nobody seems to get how much it meant to him. When things were bad at home or at school or whatever, he could always swim. The coaches loved him because he was amazing at it, and the kids loved him because he was a good coach. He taught me to swim, actually. Before SHIELD, hell, even during SHIELD, swimming was his life, and people don't realise that. It was always so much more than just a sport for him. It was his escape from _everything_." 

Steve nodded, unable to really relate, but touched by the intensely personal nature of the revelation. This gave him something of this 'Percy' as more than just an agent or that one missing puzzle piece, because, like everybody else, he was a person too, with a past and things that made him tick and friends and maybe even a family that he left behind. 

He felt he should uphold his part of the bargain, and offer something about Bucky, but he had no idea what the books said about him. No idea whether they were accurate or yet another propaganda-pumped lie about his life.

“Bucky and I first met when we were ten; I was just some dumb punk who was being beaten up for his lunch money, and Bucky was this perfect honour student with absolutely no obligation to step in and save my sorry ass. He was always better at the moral compass thing than I was, I think. He used to tell me that I needed to realise that the world wasn't nearly as black and white as I thought it was. Hilarious, really, given that I was entirely colourblind and could therefore only see black and white anyway." 

"You were colourblind?" 

Steve nodded. "Books don't mention that part, then?" 

Clint's brow furrowed. "No, I think they did. But I assumed that they just meant like red-green or something. I didn't realise that you didn't see any colours at all." 

Steve shrugged. "I kept most things to myself when I could. But I must say that it was the best part of receiving the serum, being able to see all that beauty hidden in the grey of everyday life." 

Clint nodded. "Yeah, I can believe it. I must say I can't even begin to imagine anything happening to my eyesight. Best thing I've got."

That surprised Steve a little. "You're SHIELD's best marksman."

"Yeah, and why do you think that is? I'm good at seeing things. Hearing them doesn't matter." 

"What does that mean?" 

Clint finally turned around at that to face Steve, swinging his feet away from the edge to sit cross-legged. "You're telling me that you don't know? Worst op of my life. Not only is my best friend killed,” - he swallowed audibly - but the docs tell me that the proximity to the blast caused irreparable 80% hearing loss. Just a good job that SHIELD has always been in the business of making comms units; apparently they're easy to adapt so make hearing things easier."

Congrats, Steve. Put your great oaf-like feet right in it again. "Sorry. I didn't know." 

Clint smiled joylessly, mouth twisting upwards without any spark in his eyes. "Most people don't. You tend to keep critical weaknesses pretty close to your chest in this sort of business. All it would take would be a decent-ish EMP blast, and I wouldn't be able to hear even the sloppiest of professionals coming for me.” He brushed his hands on his knees.

Steve found himself nodding again (probably looked like an idiot with all of this understanding nodding). "But that's what a good team's for, isn't it?" 

"Yeah, I guess. Last time I ever saw Percy, he was saving my sorry ass. More of a team player than me, that's for sure."

"Really?" 

"You've worked with Nat and I, we're not exactly welcoming new recruits with open arms, are we? Percy was always quite good at knowing exactly what he needed to do to make you feel safe or valued, you get me? Sometimes that was inviting you round after school for his mom's cookies, and sometimes that was shooting off a flare gun to draw fire and let Nat get you safe, but he always did it."

"Bucky was the same. No matter how much I railed against it or shouted or cried, and no matter how tough things got, there was always a place for me at the Barnes' table. And he was _very_ good at drawing attention away from the skinny guy having an asthma attack."

"It still feels recent to you, doesn't it?" 

It occurred to Steve as he said that, that nobody else in the whole of this brave new world seemed to have put that together. "For me, it's just months. Just weeks before I hit the ice. For the rest of the world, it's been seventy years. It's tough. Very few people have realised that."

Clint shrugged again. "Takes grief to recognise grief, doesn't it." 

It wasn't a question.

"How long?" Steve asked softly.

He hunched his shoulders. "Ten months today, I fell unconscious on a patch of San Francisco concrete, and, two days later, woke up to find out that my whole world had been tipped up on its axis. Sometimes I still find myself praying that he's out there, that by some stupid miracle he survived the whole thing and that, wherever he might be, he's okay." 

Sometimes, it took blind, childish hope like that to remind Steve that the man sitting on the roof's edge before him was still so painfully young despite the pain in his eyes. "I think it might be a bit much for me to hope that," he admitted. "Even if by some miracle he survived the fall, it was the middle of the alpine winter. And besides, there's the matter of the relentless march of time working against the chance I'll ever see him again." He paused thoughtfully for a second, taking in the still-bizarre skyline and feeling the cold breeze pull at his clothes. "But I admire your hope. And, if anyone deserves to beat the odds, your friend sounds like just the guy."

Clint squeezed his eyes shut, as if trying to contain words that couldn't ever be put back. “I saw him again. After San Francisco. After he officially dropped off the grid.”

Steve eyed the guy warily. Was this a figment of his imagination, or reality?

“It was during the gas leak. The one from two weeks ago?”.Clint’s gaze didn’t leave his hands which were fiddling idly in his lap. 

"The one that gave you that mysterious cut on your throat?" 

Clint idly reached up to rub at the thin scab still present in a neat line. "Yeah, that one. Long story short, it wasn't a gas leak."

Steve raised an eyebrow. He couldn't help himself. "Well, it doesn't take a genius to realise that most domestic gas pipes don't contain gas that causes the entire population to fall asleep for hours on end."

Clint laughed again, still without any real humour behind it. "I don't know what caused the leak, but I do know that Manhattan was overrun by supernatural creatures while you guys were taking a catnap." He glanced up, and, presumably upon seeing a shift in Steve's expression so imperceptible he hadn't realised he'd done anything, added, "You can accuse me of being crazy if you want, but it's true. Nothing should surprise _you_ anymore." 

He had a point. 

Clint ploughed on, now seemingly unable to keep the story at bay. Steve wondered if he'd talked to anybody at all about this, even Nat. Hell, even the mirror or an interesting brick wall. Some things shouldn't be kept to yourself, and this seemed to be one of those things. "He was fighting them. The monsters. They used me as a hostage to get to him, and I was so _helpless_ to do anything about it." Clint laughed bitterly. “It didn’t help that it would have been his birthday.”

He paused, taking a slightly shaky breath. "Either way, they all went up the elevator of the Empire State, and I couldn't follow. As in, I physically couldn't reach the elevator. It was like running into a glass door that wasn't there for anybody else. All I knew was that I was awake and Percy needed my help, and I couldn't give it. So I hung around in the lobby, pacing a hole in the carpet, waiting for _anything_.

"And then some guy I've never seen in my life comes down and the doors open and he's carrying Percy, and I don't know if he's alive or dead, but there's one hell of a lot of blood, and nobody's telling me shit and they just all _leave_ and I'm just standing there in a silent city, and I haven't got a _fucking clue_ whether I've just seen my missing-in-action best friend's dead body or not."

He stopped, pausing for breath. His whole frame trembled minutely. "So hope's all I've got right now. I know he _was_ alive after SHIELD officially labelled him dead, but I don't know if he's still kickin' or not. 

"Just hope, Steve. Just hope." 

Steve heaved a breath and, hand shaking, reached out for Clint’s shoulder, but didn’t touch it. He didn’t think that that would be a good idea, considering that Clint was sitting on the edge of a building and all that. He found himself smiling wryly despite himself and the atmosphere. "You know what? Hope, I think I can get behind.

"I would still very much like to meet this mysterious 'Percy'.”

For the first time, Clint's face split into a genuine smile. "Maybe you will."

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! this was our first time doing third person for like the first time in three years, so...
> 
> let us know what you think!


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